


we in our youth

by Shenanigans



Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020), DCU (Comics), Harley Quinn (Comics), Wonder Woman (Comics), Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: Bisexual Diana (Wonder Woman), Bisexual Harleen Quinzel, Discussions of self worth, F/F, Gen, gratuitous use of the lasso, preslash, the kids are fine, there's a whole battle going on but it's harley pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:40:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28676820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shenanigans/pseuds/Shenanigans
Summary: Harley was only ever able to accurately lie to herself. It made finding the truth a complicated conversation.
Relationships: Diana (Wonder Woman)/Harleen Quinzel, Diana Prince/Harley Quinn, Wonder Woman/Harley Quinn
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	we in our youth

**Author's Note:**

> title from sappho: if not, winter. fragments because I am an avowed poetry nerd. This is my first time writing either of these characters.

Harley wasn't _not_ caught, but it's not like she hadn't been tied up before. It wasn’t like she didn’t _like_ it. Okay, so maybe she'd been thinking about it out loud, with her outside voice and not her inside voice. "I'll be the first to admit that sometimes I get distracted and can't differentiate between inside thoughts and outside actions. Mister J is always shutting me up. He’s just a busy guy, you know? He needs me to be quiet. I can be quiet. I can be good for him. I could be good for you too, you know? I might like that. Being good." 

There was a whole world outside, she could hear it, but Harley was very good at ignoring things she didn’t want to know about. It was kind of like her super-power. The warehouse rattled to the rebar at a violent boom, like someone was bouncing a giant softball off an empty metal barrel. She sneezed at the dust that sifted through the widening cracks. It was pretty like glitter in the soft golden glow of the magical rope that bound her. Her boot heel was loose, flapping away from the toe and she frowned at it. “Gonna have to get that repaired. You know any cobblers? Not like the fruit kind but the-” The rope tightened and Harley’s attention snapped back to the woman threatening her. She was beautiful in the glow, like something permanent and expensive. 

“The Key, Harley.”

“Yeesh. Pushy.” She sniffed, wet her lips, watching the way those thickly-lashed hooded blue eyes didn't waver and flushed harder. "I mean. It's a classic deflection technique, the wanting to be good for people.” She tried to lift her hands, remembered they were bound, and bent to tap her temple against her shoulder instead. “Text book codependent behavior. You see, if I focus on being the person that is useful I can't be discarded. If I just _try harder_ I might not be trash, you know?

“If I’m trash then it’s just what I deserve. I deserve to be thrown away. Ain’t that a kicker. I pick people who are gonna throw me out and it validates my reality that I don’t deserve to be loved.” The lasso didn't burn. She'd thought it would burn. She'd assumed that the truth would hurt. “People always tell me it hurts when you catch them in this. Is it cause they’re lyin’?” She frowned, staring off into the space where the bodies of seventeen children were huddled together, little faces smeared with cement dust and red smiling lipstick. She’d forgotten about them. “Hey Kids! Listen to Doctor Harley! People always think lying will keep from hurtin’ people’s feelings. _Wrong_. Very wrong. It’s the truth that does it.” She widened her eyes, smile going nearly painful as she nodded at them. One girl whimpered. "People always think the truth will hurt. Just hurts the first time. Once you _accept_ it? Then it's just warm and comfortable."

"Where's the key, Harley?" Wonder Woman stated.

"Oh, you know that you should ask things like a question. People respond better to those than demands. You got pretty hair, you know that?” She sighed, twisting slightly so that she could tuck the tips of her fingers under her thigh to keep them warm. It was cold here in August. Everything was upside down. She wouldn’t have come but- “Trust me. Mister J demands things all the time. It might be helpfu-urk!"

"You're wasting my time," the woman whispered, leaning closer. She smelled like expensive shampoo and something that Harley's mind was trying to place. She knew that smell. It was specific: warm and slippery green and-

"Olive oil!" She grinned. "You smell like the fancy bread olive oil at Pino's Trattoria!"

A crack in the ceiling went a violent glowing red, strobing over the room followed by another crash and a distant male bellow of pain. The floor rattled again. Wonder Woman’s jaw tensed and Harley needed a moment. She needed to exhale around the warm rich throb of absolute desire that shot through her at the flicker of muscle. It meant the woman was paying attention to her. It meant that Harley was someone's singular focus.

"I wish you’d keep lookin’ at me. I like it," she told the black haired woman. "It's kind of heady, you know? After all, the goal is to be the focus of someone's desire? To be wanted instead of just useful."

"Harley. Focus.” The woman sank to her knees and tilted her head, the weight of that beautiful black hair slumping over a strong shoulder to curl at the curve of her breast. Harley wanted to know if it was soft. She wanted to lean forward and press her fac- “ _Please_. There are lives at stake."

She could help. She _could_. It would be good, doing the right thing. She would feel the tight tug of the lasso drop away. She would see the soft moment of gratitude. She would understand that this was always fleeting. It was always fucking fleeting with these heroes.

Heroes always wanted something _from_ her. They never wanted _her_.

"Will you come back?" she asked, helpless to the way she wanted to be wanted. "Will you come back for me?"

"Yes."

"Are you lying to me?" she had to know, she had to ask. The hope hurt. The truth felt like sinking into a warm bath. She could fall asleep in it. Maybe she’d drown. Hope would feel like drowning. It would feel familiar like the desperate moment before the world moved on without her again and left her a memory to be smudged away like yesterday's mascara. Smudged away like lipstick from someone’s cheek. "You can't lie to me. You're a hero."

The woman tilted her head and reached. Harley couldn't help the flinch. People didn't touch her like she was fragile. (She had everyone fooled.)

"I promise," the woman said.

Harley nodded, chin crumbling as she turned and looked to her right and pointed to where she’d hidden the key. She didn't need to see the way the woman had wrapped the rope around her own hand, wrapped the truth around her fingers to make Harley believe.

Harley was used to believing in the impossible. She was a romantic, after all.

"Don't tell Mister J it was me."

There was a light touch to her chin and Harley looked up, looked at the woman who held her gaze. 

Wonder Woman had a striking face, beautiful and terrifying with thickly lashed blue eyes. They couldn’t be a normal blue, that would be too easy. No, they were a stunning mediterranean blue like those doors on the island that was painted white, like the world didn't matter when something that blue existed. Harley wished she could- Wonder Woman was a marvel of black hair and stern focus. She turned and her profile was worth epics, high bridged and patrician. Harley wanted to sip hope from that sapphic mouth, sultry and soft under the threat of a sweet smile.

She looked like a goddess. She _was_ a goddess.

"Figures," Harley whispered. Harley wasn’t even a clown. "Always gonna be falling down instead of up."

"At least you continue to climb, little one," Wonder Woman smiled and Harley felt something inside of her crack down the middle with hope. It _hurt_. She sniffled, unsure when she started crying or if she'd always been crying.

"It’s not a joke if you don’t get back up," Harley said. She didn’t think- she never really thought things through when her heart was on the line- she moved, sighing into the soft kiss she stole. She was always stealing affection. 

It was the only thing _worth_ stealing.

“If you stay down it’s just pathetic.”

Wonder Woman sprinted like a tear in expensive silk hose, splintering and sexy. Her movement was a thrum of thighs and shift of skin. Harley curled onto the floor as the warm feel of the truth seeped out of her. She wiggled, hooking her hands forward under her heels and stared at her fingers, noting a hangnail.

She was chewing it bloody by the time the key and the goddess were gone.

"Gotta save the world," Harley reminded herself. The building rattled and the children were gone. Harley was all alone. "That's always going to be more important.” 

She sighed, turning to look at you. “ _What_? Did you think this was a _love story_?"

**Author's Note:**

> comments are adored more that sour candies. Also, I have a [tumblr](https://irolltwenties.tumblr.com/) if you wanna say hi.


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